Austria is the only Eurozone country and China the only Asian country that produces gold bullion for sale.

It seems only the dollar/Anglo countries produce gold/silver/platinum/palladium bullion for sale (UK, United States, Canada, Australia). I know there is Mexico but it is in the Anglo-sphere and is the only non-Anglo country in the Western Hemisphere that produces bullion coinage for sale.

This is specifically about National Mints.

We all know what happened to Qadaffi in Libya and Hussein in Iraq when they tried to trade outside the dollar.

Is the bullion some means of keeping the dollar the world reserve currency? Are gold/silver really backing the dollar either exclusively or in addition to oil?

"I pointed out that it was interesting that in the 1980s, many nations began programs of minting bullion coins.

It seemed odd that sovereign nations would have an interest in preventing it's citizen from storing wealth outside of the banking system, while at the same time providing an ideal means of doing so and one which posed no threat to the solvency of the banking system."

He then goes on to seek answers to this question.

If you haven't come across BelangP's work yet, I couldn't speak more highly of it. If you are like me and like to think deep about economics, BelangP's analysis is some of the best around.

Finally, as to your last question: Are gold/silver really backing the dollar either exclusively or in addition to oil?"

The dollar is not backed by anything except faith. Additionally, even when the dollar used to be back by gold/silver, it wasn't actually backed by gold/silver due to fractional reserve banking. It has been an illusion by the money holders for centuries.

Some believe that a gold or silver backed currency would solve our current economic problems, but I'm skeptical (although it certainly would be better than what we currently have), mainly because we have fractional reserve banking. What's the point of having a currency backed by a tangible asset when the quantity of that currency, each supposedly representing that tangible asset, can be created unilaterally and at-will, regardless of how much of that tangible asset is being held for the benefit of the currency producers, who are private individuals.

In regards to Russia specifically, I recently saw this article that Russia could be positioning itself for issuing currency in silver. Although it is a little-bit far reaching, it is, nonetheless, an interesting read.